


Iudex Nadir

by Parthenopaon



Series: Golden Sun and Chaos Spider [1]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Eldritch Widowmaker, F/F, Golden Sun Fareeha, Mythological AU, Weird fiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-26
Updated: 2017-12-26
Packaged: 2019-02-22 04:51:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13159647
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Parthenopaon/pseuds/Parthenopaon
Summary: Within the crystalline grove, Fareeha finds both her Nightmare and herself.





	Iudex Nadir

_For only in the grip of darkness_

_Will we shine amidst the brightest stars_

\- The Death of Love by Cradle of Filth

 

 

“Who are you?” Fareeha asked, her breath escaping in thick blooms of fog.

For a moment after, there was nothing, nothing other than an unusual quiet that made her skin want to crawl from her bones. The eerie cold dropped by a few more degrees, shards of crystalline ice forming from her unsteady breath. Fareeha wondered then if it was possible her hearing had deserted her altogether, leaving behind a silence not even the blood rushing within her ears could hope to break. Her teeth chattered together so fiercely it was a miracle the enamel did not crack and shatter.

When the eerie whisper came, it did so with a suddenness that made her snap to attention, back going ramrod straight. Fareeha’s breath shuddered to a stop, lungs catching painfully beneath her breast.

The depths of the silvery, crystalline night rippled like a pond of deep, dark waters disturbed, oily shadows sweeping out among the trees, an icy mist colder than anything she had ever experienced sweeping about her.

“I am Nightmare, Cruelty to your Justice, and I have waited ages for your return.”

The words seemed to come from within, a melodious echo seeping from a fog of memories too faint to grasp, crowding her skull until Fareeha thought the top of her head would burst open in a shower of blood and bone. She clutched at her ears in vain, the pressure so unyielding she could not help but scream, hoping against hope to crowd out one echo with another. Just as dark blotches bloomed at her peripheral, the echoes ceased, taking the remainder of her strength along with them. Fareeha collapsed to her knees, feeling empty and bereft of everything but the cold dancing over the exposed skin of her arms and collarbones. Pain, sharp and sudden, sliced through her knees as cleanly as the frozen grass beneath did, dispelling the fog shrouding her mind.

She had to get out of here, had to get away from the chill invading her bones before the dark infected her with its misty essence, leaving behind a mark not even the sun could burn away.

“Look at me, Fareeha.”

Fareeha flinched, recoiling away, icy shards shredding the skin of her palms as she bowed forward. She tried to brace herself, tried to prepare for the pressure about to shatter her skull, but nothing came. There was no pain, no shadows tugging at memories best left forgotten, just a voice of frozen velvet giving an order she could never hope to resist.

Fareeha looked up, blinking thrice to make sure she wasn’t seeing shadows where there were none, but the woman looming over her did not fade or waver. Indeed, the edges of her only sharpened, bringing the odd coloring of her skin into sharp concentration. The moon’s silvery fingers added a subtlety that made her skin glow, haloing her in a sphere of ice and mist, a royal purple that only added to the mystery of her. Golden eyes, sharper than any dagger or frozen blade of grass, looked into Fareeha, picking apart all the wants and faults accumulated through a lifetime of joy and strife. There was no judgment to be found there, indeed the woman’s eyes held nothing, nothing other than a cold, primeval light that had been lost to the ages. Despite the utter lack of humanity radiating from her tall frame, Fareeha felt no fear. There was mild apprehension of course, but greater than that was the spark of curiosity that threatened to burst into a full-fledged inferno. This entity, no matter how unfamiliar, was no stranger and Fareeha _knew_ she would not be hurt. At least, not unless she attempted something overly foolish.

“Good,” the woman whispered, long slender fingers trailing a path of ice along the curve of Fareeha’s jaw. “Fear has never been an anchor to you, Little Falcon. Don’t let it be now.”

“Why—” Fareeha’s voice cracked before she could voice her question, tongue becoming tied into knots of unknown origin.

“— am I so familiar?” the woman finished, plucking the question right from Fareeha’s befuddled mind. “Because we have walked the endless paths together, never separate, until we were.”

It was said with a detached sort of amusement as if the heat of Fareeha’s skin tempted her away from the emotion generated by distant memory. Or perhaps it had simply been so long that the pain of separation had faded until not even the echo of echoes remained. But clearly, yearning was still there, and it ate at Fareeha’s skin so insistently she could not help but claw at her arms, blunt nails leaving behind scorching trails.

The woman slid gracefully to her knees, callused palms cupping Fareeha’s face.

“Will you not name me, _chérie_? Surely you have not lost that much?”

_Lost_ , Fareeha thought as the chill settling in her bones bled outwards in a hazy mass. _Not forgotten, but lost_. There was a league of difference between the two, as large as the difference between Earth’s gentle moon and the temperamental giant that was Jupiter, and Fareeha knew, that if she could have helped it, this woman would never be too far from her thoughts. And so she concluded that she had lost perhaps more than either of them realized, but the hope kindled within the woman’s inquisitive eyes fanned the flames beneath Fareeha’s skin into a frenzy. If she could remember, if she could reclaim the woman’s name from the fragments lost to time, perhaps she would be able to make sense of this strange and confounding dream. Perhaps she might even make sense of her shadowed self.

“Yes,” the woman hissed, “name me. Name me and return.”

There was hope in her voice and a bleak sort of desperation, as if she had reached the end of the rope and only Fareeha could keep her neck from being broken upon its unyielding uncertainty. The strength in her slender, but nonetheless powerful body, belied the tenderness with which she held onto Fareeha, and the Egyptian could not help but choke on the leaden weight her tongue had become. No one had ever looked at her quite like this as if she held the last fragile remnants of their soul in one hand and everlasting oblivion in the other. For all her worthwhile accomplishments and many wayward dreams, never had anyone placed such power in her hands and such a weight upon her soul, the uncertainty of it almost crushing. What would happen if she failed to name the woman? Would she become as lost as the desperation cutting deep furrows in her brow suggested? Would she truly become a thing of ghoulish nightmare, tearing at Fareeha with claws made of ice and fangs coated in ichor? Could Fareeha chance being wrong?

“You were wrong once before, Little Falcon, and that did not stop me. _Nothing_ will.”

Nothing, Fareeha knew, except for the gloom crowding her memories and the remnants of her mother’s control. Unless Fareeha remembered and went willingly, neither of them would escape the whispering fingers of the moonlit grove, and her body was not nearly as resilient to the cold as her companion’s. Already her fingers and toes were painfully numb, the blood on her hands and knees fully crystallized. Her joints and muscles had locked, stiffening to the point of breakage, a single unprompted twitch threatening to shatter her like an icicle upon rocky shore. Either she would remember or death, slow and painful, would claim her long before the sun crested the horizon.

“That will not happen,” the woman insisted, not unless you let it. Return to me, that we might quit this foul place for a world that need not see you shackled.”

_…a world that need not see you shackled_.

It was a simple enough sentence, though one that made little sense to her. That did not change the fact, however, that it tugged at a fog of memories, the painful echoes threatening to return. The throbbing at the base of her skull exploded into a full-blown inferno, ripping along her spine like a rabid dog intent on bloody destruction. Fareeha reached out instinctively, fingers clutching at the woman’s powerful shoulders. Her flesh was as cold and unyielding as the pain threatening to blow Fareeha’s skull apart, but the Egyptian never once thought of pushing her away. Not when the woman’s apathetic presence was the only thing keeping her grounded.

As a child, Fareeha had often suffered terrible nightmares, waking in cold sweat, screams caught in the back of her throat so fiercely she would choke on their ghastly presence. No matter how many times she tried, she could never remember what it was that nipped at her heels and laughed in her ears, though she knew well the effect it had on her impressionable mind. She felt the exact same way now, kneeling in this icy grove, holding in her hands the heart of an enigma. Were woman and nightmare on and the same? Or was she being pursued by two different but equally terrifying entities?

The answer to that question held the key to her salvation, for her nightmare had a name much kinder than its foul presence would ever deserve.

“Who are you?” Fareeha demanded with a strength she did not possess.

“I cannot say, not until you name me.”

The woman’s eyes were searching now, for what Fareeha could not say, though they held within them a wariness that had not been present before. There was darkness too, a cruel sort that had been kept well hidden. Now that she had seen it, however, she knew that it had always been there. She had just been too blind to acknowledge it.

“I have always been the Dark to your Light, in more ways than one.”

Her smile held a wistful sort of loss, an acknowledgment of the vast league of differences between them. But it had not always been so, this divide between them, and Fareeha wondered what it would be like to truly _know_ her.

“Name me and find out, _ma chérie_.”

Fareeha tried to open her mouth, jaw creaking like a rusty hinge in the wind, her tongue a frozen log cut adrift.

_I know you_.

Always have.

_My Nightmare_.

Always would.

_My Spider_.

Always will.

_My…_

“ _… Amélie_.”

The Spider looked as if Fareeha had reached into her breast to tear her heart from its seat, her most vulnerable insides laid bare for the moon’s ever greedy fingers. A host of indiscernible expressions danced across her angular face, but chief among them, and most recognizable was _relief_.

Fareeha, no longer afraid of her limbs shattering like brittle glass, lunged forward to wrap her arms around Amélie, uncaring of the bitter chill burrowing its way beneath her skin.

“I remember,” Fareeha breathed out. “I remember you.”

Amélie’s fingers dug into her back with such force Fareeha’s ribs creaked under strain, fangs sinking into the vulnerable skin of her throat. The parting of flesh and muscle brought with it a smarting pain that only served to further awaken the inferno raging within. Fareeha laughed, returning the hug with equal force. They need not fear permanently harming each other. They had never been able to.

Fareeha’s blood steamed in the air, its feral heat coaxing a sigh from Amélie’s lips.

“Like feasting on the tears of the Sun,” she mouthed against Fareeha’s skin, curved fangs leaving behind deep scores.

“Not just tears, Spider, but Lifeblood.”

Amélie was the only entity dark enough to drink from the Sun without combusting, the rippling cold of her apathetic enough to drain even the fiercest of fires.

“I’m so tired,” Fareeha said. The sudden strength she had mustered once more bled out and only Amélie’s bruising hold kept her from collapsing.

“You should rest now, Little Falcon. We have much to speak of and even more worlds to travel.”

“You’ll find me?”

“ _Always_.”

When Fareeha awoke, her mother’s fingers tangled with her own, she did so with an awareness that seemed to warp reality around her. Already the drab colors of the hospital room seemed brighter, their edges sharper than ever, shadows flinching away from her as yet untapped potential. She could feel the subtle shift as her ribs righted themselves beneath the strain of tightly wrapped bandages, torn muscles and bruised flesh following suit.

She was no longer just Ana Amari’s daughter; no longer just another faceless soldier in a vast army. She was more than all the sum of her parts combined and multiplied tenfold. She was the embodiment of the Sun and she had been shackled long enough.

“Fareeha?”

Ana’s remaining eye held many questions that would never be met with answers, and Fareeha returned the grip on her hand with one of her own.

“I’m here, mama.”

_Though I can’t say for how long_.

From within came a whisper, a melodious echo seeping from a kaleidoscope of memories no longer too faint to grasp.

_“I am here.”_

**Author's Note:**

> I've always been interested in writing weird fiction and these two work well within the themes of light and dark. There will be more of these one-shots, and the next will be about them meeting for the first time at the edge of the world.


End file.
